Cranesbill Nursery

Specialties

At Cranesbill Nursery we are passionate about plants! Cranesbill Nursery specializes in a unique selection of plants and custom garden designs.

We offer private consultations at your home, custom garden designs and provide complete installation and maintenance services as well. No job is too small or too large as we have trusted contractors that we work with on a regular basis.

At Cranesbill Nursery we offer something that our customers seem to really appreciate: friendly and knowledgeable service. We will spend as much time and energy as you want or need to select the plants or services that are right for you. In fact, feel free to bring us pictures or show us your garden areas and we’ll be happy to recommend just the right plants for that area.

Cranesbill Nursery is known for unusual and eye catching perennials, trees and shrubs. We also carry annuals and create hangers and containers and have a large assortment of one-​of-​a-​kind handmade wood products, made by a local artisan.

History

Established in 2010.

Mary Anne Brady started Cranesbill Nursery in 1990 at her one acre farm in Cumberland, RI. She discovered Cranesbill (which is the common name for perennial geraniums) and found them to be tough, hard-​working perennials that could take any kind of abuse. She started collecting and now has the largest collection on the East Coast with about 140 different cranesbill at any given time.

Twenty five years ago Mary Anne was living in Cumberland, RI with her husband in an old farm house on over an acre of land. Having grown up as the gardening assistant to her mother’s gardens, this house in Cumberland is where Mary Anne too grew passionate about gardening. She quickly discovered Geranium Sanguineum, ‘JohnElsley’ and Geranium Sanguineum, ‘Shepherd’s Warning’, which are both small ground covers. Once she saw how undemanding these two were, she started reading about the genus and discovered what a large family of lovely plants was available.

Meet the Business Owner

Mary Anne B.

Business Owner

I would have to say I am an addict when it comes to plants in general, but I never dreamed I would have a nursery. Instead, I concentrated on one particular genus which became my area of expertise. About five years later, I started selling Cranesbill from my yard. And the rest, as they say, is history!

In 2001, I moved to Barrington, RI, to a much smaller site and started my design/​maintenance business, still collecting Cranesbill and selling out of my backyard as well as plant sales. In October of 2009 I bought an existing nursery that had been closed for two years. We opened May 1, 2010 and haven’t looked back since!

In 1998, I became a URI Master Gardener. Since then I have never stopped going to school or classes. I am a Rhode Island Certified Horticulturist, a RI Tree Steward and a member of: RINLA (Rhode Island Nursery Landscape Association), Blithewold Mansion and Arboretum, Arnold’s Arboretum, The Perennial Plant Association and the Hardy Plant Association.